title

description

ms.date

ms.topic

f1_keywords

helpviewer_keywords

author

ms.author

manager

ms.technology

dev_langs

ms.workload

Code snippets

Learn about code snippets, which are small blocks of reusable code that you can insert into a code file.

12/14/2022

conceptual

vs.ExpansionManagerImport

vs.codesnippetmanager

surround with

code snippets

TerryGLee

tglee

jmartens

vs-ide-general

CSharp

CPP

multiple

Code snippets

[!INCLUDE Visual Studio]

Code snippets are small blocks of reusable code that you can add to a code file by using the right-click context menu command or a combination of hotkeys. Code snippets typically contain often-used code blocks such as try-finally or if-else blocks, but you can also use them to add entire classes or methods.

[!NOTE] This article applies to Visual Studio on Windows. For Visual Studio for Mac, see Code snippets (Visual Studio for Mac).

Code snippets are available for many languages, including C#, C++, and Visual Basic, to name a few.

To view all the available snippets for a language, select Tools > Code Snippets Manager from the menu bar (or, press Ctrl+K, Ctrl+B) and then select the language you want from the drop-down menu at the top of the dialog box.

In Visual Studio, there are several different ways you can add a code snippet to a code file:

On the menu bar, choose Edit > IntelliSense > Insert Snippet
From the right-click or context menu in the code editor, choose Snippet > Insert Snippet
From the keyboard, press Ctrl+K,Ctrl+X

Expansion snippets and surround-with snippets

There are two kinds of code snippets you can add to your code.

Snippet type	How it's used
expansion	Added at a specified insertion point and might replace a snippet shortcut
surround-with	Added around a selected block of code (available for C# and C++ only)

In the following example of an expansion snippet in C#, the shortcut tryf adds a try-finally block:

try
{

}
finally
{

}

Here's how to add this expansion snippet:

In the code window, position your cursor where you want to add the snippet.
Select Insert Snippet from the right-click context menu.
Select Visual C#, then type tryf, and then press Tab. (Or, you can type tryf and press Tab twice.)

In the following example of a surround-with snippet in C++, the shortcut if can be used either as an insertion snippet or as a surround-with snippet. If you select a line of code (for example return FALSE;), and then choose Surround With > if, the snippet is expanded around the line:

if (true)
{
    return FALSE;
}

Snippet replacement parameters

Snippets can contain replacement parameters, which are placeholders that you must replace to fit the code you're writing. In the previous example, true is a replacement parameter, which you'd replace with the appropriate condition. The replacement you make is repeated for every instance of the same replacement parameter in the snippet.

For example, in Visual Basic there's a code snippet that inserts a property. To insert the snippet, select Snippet > Insert Snippet from the right-click context menu in a Visual Basic code file. Then, select Code Patterns > Properties, Procedures, Events > Define a Property.

The following code is inserted:

Private newPropertyValue As String
Public Property NewProperty() As String
    Get
        Return newPropertyValue
    End Get
    Set(ByVal value As String)
        newPropertyValue = value
    End Set
End Property

If you change newPropertyValue to m_property, then every instance of newPropertyValue is changed. If you change String to Int in the property declaration, then the value in the set method is also changed to Int.

Next steps

To learn how to create your own code snippets, see Walkthrough: Create a code snippet.

visualstudio-docs/docs/ide/code-snippets.md

Code snippets

Expansion snippets and surround-with snippets

Snippet replacement parameters

Next steps

See also